


In-Between the Lines (The Green Room)

by Ballyharnon



Series: Madhouse Lovenest [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-05-17
Packaged: 2018-03-30 21:41:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3952774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ballyharnon/pseuds/Ballyharnon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remus accidentally overdoes it; Sirius must use their safeword. </p><p>(Warning: Dominance play or something sort of like it, light bondage, consensual violence both physical and magical.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	In-Between the Lines (The Green Room)

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted 18 July 2011 as a response to a challenge at hp-kinkmemes on Livejournal. This version has been edited to flesh it out a little and to bring it in line with the series.

Sirius was sprawled naked across his brother's bed on his belly with only a white sheet over his legs, and he had to know how positively wicked he looked, even if he was asleep. Remus sat down upon the edge of the mattress and stared at him while he undid his own tie and the buttons down his front. Merlin knew why he'd come in here of all places, but at least he was sleeping soundly, and in his human skin--even if it was under a Slytherin pennant. Remus sighed.

Sometimes he considered the conjugal entertainment of Sirius Black to be one of his more crucial Order duties, for the man was far more intractable when he wasn't worn out from a good beating and a hard fuck. Sometimes Remus even thought it a pity that such a sexpot as Sirius should be locked up in his family home with only a single half-bent and worn-out old werewolf for company, but only when he was feeling particularly uncharitable towards himself.

He put a hand on the nape of Sirius' neck and kneaded at the muscles there until he came awake. "Sirius," he murmured. "Do you want to play?"

"Always," he replied immediately, a grin in his voice though it was still gravelly with sleep. He began to turn over, but Remus moved one hand into the man's shaggy hair and gripped tight, the other hand circling his upper arm. With a sudden ferocity he hauled Sirius right off the bed onto the floor, sending the mattress a little askew with the torque of his own long, lean body. Sirius brought himself about so that he was facing him, sitting on his heels on the green rug, and he must have been sleepy hard before Remus had woken him, for his prick was blood-dark and bobbing eagerly against his abdomen already. The sight of it made the werewolf suddenly throb with need, made his breathing come a little slower and harsher. 

"I was comfortable," Sirius groused as Remus stepped close, and he earned himself a smack across the cheek for the complaint, precisely placed to sting without leaving a mark. He couldn't hide his broad smile of perverse pleasure.

Remus didn't want him to hide it.

He slinked his tie out of his collar and motioned vaguely towards Sirius. "Put your hands up." Remus slipped his wand from his pocket long enough to stroke the tip along the length of his tie, temporarily transfiguring the material into a soft, thick cord.

Sirius obeyed happily, held his hands up in front of him, before his chest, and Remus dropped momentarily onto his own knees in order to bind his wrists with the silky cord. He worked carefully, tugging at the bonds as he went, lifting an inquiring eyebrow at Sirius who nodded happily at him. Finally, Sirius' forearms were bound together all along their length and with his palms placed precisely together, which had the added advantage of temporarily disabling his magic by what could crudely be called a short-circuit. He could wriggle some and bend his elbows, but his arms and hands were otherwise quite incapacitated.

Remus was terse; he made up unspoken rules and let the other man figure them out by breaking them, because he knew Sirius better than anyone else ever had. It was much better that he should have a friend, a _lover_ , to rail against like this than let him risk getting the feeling back in all the numb bits of his soul by participating in the world, in this bloody war again, without a full deck. Most days Remus was certain that the other man would fight again, and that the day for it was coming soon, but for now he had too much to regain, to put back together, and so they all made excuses about it being too dangerous to show himself, and locked him up all over again.

And Remus was complicit in it.

At least he could give Sirius this outlet. (If there was any irony in his being fragile enough to need to be beaten regularly and viciously, Remus refused to see it.)

He undid his belt and waited for Sirius to do something, slowly circling. Finally, when Remus was standing behind him, the other man broke his favourite rule and said something smart. "Moony, you know this will work better if you get undressed, yeah?"

Remus took a deep breath and with a quick flick of his wrist he laid his belt across the middle of Sirius' back. The other man groaned, a long, low sound which had the slightly hysterical quality of a noise unintentionally let out. When Remus didn't hit him again, he looked over his shoulder. "That all?" he teased.

The belt came down again, harder this time. "You hadn't earned it until you said that," he explained blandly, as though this all were of no more matter to him than disciplining a student. "You know what I want to see."

"All right, bossy-boots," Sirius laughed, squirming, and Remus had to lash him again for making fun, twice for good measure in fact because of how silly it was. He stared at the welts he was raising, entranced and a little chagrined at how pink they were. One had a little line of blotchy purple spots along the top edge. He knelt for a moment to run his palm roughly over the skin, and Sirius hissed a little with pleasure.

"Moony," Sirius said then, gruff and a little shy somehow, "that's…"

Remus waited for him to finish.

"That's so good," he breathed finally, the admission seeming to take something out of him. Remus, smiling fondly, straightened so he could bring the belt down again, this time across the backs of his thighs. The rules were simple, though they might have seemed random if anyone were observing them: Sirius got a smack for every time he said something that sounded like his old self, for every time he voiced a desire or a fear, for every time he reclaimed some lost part of himself.

It was in no way a punishment.

He wasn't giving Sirius the psychological satisfaction of enforcing boundaries he'd always wanted enforced. Sirius needed sensation, emotion, needed his nerves burned open again and his soul anchored back down. Azkaban had made a scorched mess of all his systems, had numbed him, and each time Remus flayed him open and hurt him until he could feel something, it went a little ways towards undoing the damage. Remus carefully, calculatedly coaxed his old friend out of the wreck that time had made of him, again and again, and when the old Sirius really woke, he hurt him to keep him here--for Sirius loved dearly to be hurt.

"I missed you," Sirius hissed. "I missed this."

He lashed him again, several times in succession, and if some part of him knew he was probably putting too much force into the blows, it was overridden by the part that throbbed heavily each time the sound of cured hide on living, sweating hide cracked through the room. Sirius had dropped forward and was yelping and squirming happily, stretched out on his belly with his bound arms trapped under his chest. His back and his buttocks and his thighs were decorated beautifully, pink and red and just a touch more of those little purple blotches. The sight of him, so polished and aristocratic again, an entirely different sort of handsome now that years and circumstance had changed him, wantonly humping against the slightly-scratchy nap of the no-doubt priceless oriental rug, was enough to make Remus groan aloud and still his hand for a moment so that he could adjust himself within the confines of his trousers.

"Moony!" His breathy gasp was urgent. "Use your wand? Please?"

Remus told himself he didn't want to do it, but he couldn't deny Sirius his reward for waking up enough to want it and to ask for it, so he slid his wand from his pocket and breathed deep to steady himself. "Only for a moment," he warned. The spell had ill effects for the victim and the caster both: prolonged exposure either way sapped one's sanity. But then sanity had always been a nebulous concept where Sirius was concerned. 

He closed his eyes and breathed deep, summoned every drop and dram of the rage he had felt for so long, the bitterness he still felt: if only Sirius hadn't been so stupid, so selfish and flighty, if only he hadn't chosen James and Lily over Remus, if only Remus himself hadn't been forced to make it such an easy choice-- No, that was the wrong direction--

If only the idiot hadn't fallen for his ruse--it was Sirius who'd ruined everything, with his stupid charming smiles and his wolf-tainted ways and that damnable failure of his loyalty. He deserved a little more pain, he truly did.

One had to mean it.

" _Crucio_ ," Remus grated finally, voice gravelly. He could feel the curse sliding hot and discordant out of his forearm and into the other man.

"Fuck!" Sirius shouted as the spell hit him, before he bit his lower lip, compelled to gruff silence. His muscles suddenly twitched and twisted, involuntary spasms wracking him as his nerves were shorted and shocked. It was a good thing Remus had bound his wrists so carefully--he might have been casting off instinctive defence spells in random directions if his magic hadn't been trapped in his own arms. He shouted again, he might have screamed, for besides the pain of the curse he felt pins and needles in his bones as bits of his half-disconnected soul anchored themselves back down to where they should have been. It hurt and it was slow, and it would take much more than just a lot of rough sex with Remus to bring him back from halfway-to-worse-than-dead, but it was happening.

Remus was staring at him, transfixed by the sight and by the sizzling feel of the curse and the honest hatred that powered it, connecting them in a way as intimate as sex. They had always felt absolutely everything for one another--that strange anger had tempered their love for so long: since they'd been boys, since the first time Sirius had betrayed him.

They wouldn't have worked without it.

Remus twisted his wand to give the other man a jolt, his resolve not to overdo it entirely forgotten. Sirius had begun to moan, low and rhythmic, and there was an edge to the sound now. "Moony, oh," and for a moment he clamped his teeth down as though he were fighting with himself. "Queen Susan!" he shouted absurdly then, and Remus reacted as if he'd been punched, dropping his wand with a soft thunk upon the rug and collapsing to his knees just at the other man's side. He gestured quickly, and the cord that bound Sirius' hands uncoiled itself like a snake. He pushed him onto his back, realising too late it might hurt the welts, but Sirius just wriggled against the rug like a dog might have.

He was panting and flushed, his eyes squeezed tight shut. A rumbly little growl escaped Remus at the sight of his throbbing erection. He set a hand over the middle of Sirius' chest, over his heart. "All right?" he asked, calm as he could.

Sirius nodded, a quick and shaky motion, eyes still closed. His panting wasn't slowing, and his eyelashes might have been clumped together with a hint of escaping tears.

Remus petted his hair and waited.

"I'm sorry," Sirius gasped.

"I know," Remus murmured into his temple, leaning down. "I forgive you--I will always forgive you." Again and again--he would never be able to stop forgiving him.

Sirius nodded vaguely and shut his eyes again, his breathing finally slowing. Remus watched him carefully as he came down, as his muscles slackened. After a while he said, "Give me a stroke, love," seductive and easy, like his old self.

Remus happily complied, the game forgotten, leaning down again to drop a little kiss on his cheekbone as he wrapped long fingers tight around him. Sirius shook his hands out to clear the last of the prickling of his nerves, and then he brought them up to free Remus from his tweed.

The werewolf stretched out next to him on the floor, and they kissed, too lazy and sweet to have anything at all to do with their quick motions as they satisfied one another by the simple expedient of fetching each other off like a couple of teenagers. Remus smiled into the kisses and pushed forward enthusiastically into Sirius' hands, and it didn't take much at all, for either of them. They soared to the brink together in spit-slicked hands, spilling moments apart. Sirius' breath was shaky, and Remus' spine jerked, twisting serpentine on the emerald rug.

They surfaced from the hungry kiss, eyes meeting. Remus smiled at the look on Sirius' face, all open and alive, and then both men were laughing softly and nuzzling houndlike into one another's necks.

The rug would prove difficult, but not impossible, to clean.

"I never did ask," Remus said then in a muzzy murmur. "Why Queen Susan?"

Sirius smirked. "I liked her best. She grew up to be a right little tart."

He lifted an eyebrow. "Did she?"

"Oh, most certainly she did, in-between the lines, my dear Moony."


End file.
